This invention generally relates to printing material cartridges installable into printing devices, and more particularly, to printing material cartridges having a memory.
Most types of printing devices are equipped with replaceable printing material cartridges that hold printing material for the printing process. Such printing material cartridges include toner cartridges that contain laser printer toner, ink cartridges that contain different types of ink, and ribbon cartridges that include inked ribbons.
Many of these printing material cartridges contain printing materials that are specifically engineered to perform a certain type of printing task. For example, some printing material cartridges may contain a printing material that is particularly suited for use with a certain type of print medium. Other printing material cartridges may contain a printing material that is useful for print jobs that do not require premium print quality and is made primarily to conserve printing material.
For each of these special types of printing material cartridges, variable print parameters in the printing device must be set to optimum levels so that the printing device properly utilizes the specialty printing material. The combination of settings of print parameters is known as the printing solution for the printing material.
Typically, the printing material cartridge is constructed with physical design features so that the printing device can identify the cartridge as containing specialty printing material and make appropriate configuration changes to offer the proper printing solution for the printing material. However, providing unique physical design features for various printing material cartridges presents significant disadvantages for manufacturers and users alike.
One problem with customizing cartridges with physical design features is that only the specialty printing materials and printing solutions known to the printing device manufacturer at the time of manufacture can be accommodated in the printing device. There is no way to utilize newly developed specialty printing materials in printing devices that were manufactured before the new specialty printing materials were developed, either because the printing device cannot be altered to accept a printing material cartridge with new physical characteristics or because the printing device cannot know the printing solution for the new specialty printing material.
Another problem is that unique parts must be designed, integrated and marketed for each printing device cartridge design. This makes the specialty printing materials more expensive for the user and discourages the use of the specialty printing materials. Using a specialty printing material with a generic printing solution can cause damage to a printing device and/or produce unacceptable output.
A printing system utilizes printing material cartridges with memory to provide a way to uniquely identify the contents of a printing device cartridge and optimize printing parameters for use with the printing material. In addition, data stored in the cartridge memory may be used to control the operation and status of a printer in which the cartridge is installed.
Printing material cartridges are made which have memory placed on the cartridge itself or within the label affixed to the cartridge. This memory is used to store various information regarding the cartridge, such as the number of pages that have been printed using the cartridge so that the printer may estimate how many more pages may be printed using the same cartridge. Another example of a way in which such memory is utilized is that the memory may store the model number of the cartridge so that the printing device may recognize the cartridge as valid or invalid for use with that printing device.
The present invention contemplates utilizing this memory to store printer settings that should be used when printing with the printing material contained in the printing material cartridge to obtain optimum performance. Newly developed printing materials and printing solutions for them can be provided to printing devices that were manufactured prior to the development of the new printing material. Also, all cartridges can be physically similar without regard for the type of printing material contained therein. Therefore, no special manufacturing is required for each specialty printing material.
In one implementation described herein, data stored in the cartridge memory is used to halt printer operations in particular situations, such as when operation of a printer configured in a certain way will cause damage if used with the specialty toner contained in the cartridge or if use of the specialty toner is inadvisable for any other reason.